[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV General] iRiKi:
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BENCHMARKS of several 3D Drivers Pack on HTC Diamond 6.1 based 2.03 ROM

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So I had a little time to spare and decided to install the DriverPacks available here on my Diamond and see if they made a difference in 3D performance, because my Quake III was running a bit laggy ;)

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DriverPacks used (Click here for the thread with the download links)

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Stock 2.03 based

[*]Mikenificent BlackStone TestDrivers

[*]NeoS2007_Driverpack_3

[*]Topaz D3DM

[*]Chainfire-HD2-3D-Driver-Patch-1.1

[*]GFXBoost 1.2

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Software used for Benchmarking

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BenchGLES 0.2

heliosdev Test OpenGL 1.0

CorePlayer

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Methodology

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Hard-reset between driverpack installations

Airplane mode

Sound and vibration disabled

On AC Power 100% battery

Screen Standby and Suspend modes - all disabled

Today items - all disabled

replog.exe, poutlook.exe and voicecommand.exe processes closed

Diamond in a stable surface in order not to trigger accelerometer

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Difficulties encountered

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Even with all the precautions taken which are listed above in the methodology, every benchmark showed a noticeable range of values even with tests that were ran immediately one after another, which makes it difficult to compare scores which are very similar, so my advice is:

Take this results with a grain of salt and

I hope they become a test-bed for your benchmarking procedures from now on

Since similar results can simply be a result of entropy and variety, I suggest you concentrate on the results which show a considerable difference between them.

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Results

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BenchGLES 0.2 shows a fairly easy-to-comment result. Chainfire HD2 and stock 2.03 are at the same level, while Mikenificent, Neo2007 and Topaz group come second. GFXBoost, which is NOT a driverpack but simply a software service, naturally comes last.

heliosdev TestOpenGL, on the other hand, is much more difficult to analyse. If we remove the sub-texture test where all the drivers achieved almost equal performance, all other 3 tests don't show a clear winner. Chainfire's pack, although in the first group on the alpha and color blending tests, shows a disappointing score of average ~4200 on the torus test. If we could proclaim a "winner" here, it only could be the Stock 2.03 drivers, BUT at the light of BenchGLES scores there won't be an overall clear winner which stands above all rest.

I've also tried Quake III OpenGL|ES, but relying only on gameplay and not on a benchmark it was not feasible to be in this benchmark. All I can say in light of these test is, if you like your ROM, stay with it. I see no reason to try a driverpack other than to fiddle and play with them ;)

On a side note, I've also tested Coreplayer, GAPIBench, Dinamix3dBench and SkTools draw bitmaps benchmarks, but they showed very similar results which were not sufficient to draw even a tiny bit of "scientific" conclusions (whatever that supposed to mean ahah). GLBenchmark deprecated 1.0 version only allow results that are uploaded to their site and that method, while also being a PITA, would draw an awful amount of time.

Thank you all the DriverPack makers, especially Neo (which is now retired) for all the hard work and dedication given to this entire community! My applause to you m8. Cheers all :)